Pssst! You! Yeah, you... are a passenger on a planet... on a blue-green planet that's orbiting a golden star. Now, I don't know how you feel about traveling through the part of our yearly orbit that we call February, but I love it - because of something that's happening in the ocean here around Maui. February is when we bask in the company of all the whales that migrate here from Alaska in winter. February is when I marvel over the magic of whale physics and when I marvel over the magic of whale radio.

Several decades ago a biology professor with the really cool name of Frank Fish accidentally discovered that he - and the entire scientific community - were dead wrong about the bumps on the fins of humpback whales. "It just drove me insane," recalls Professor Fish, as he tells the story. Scientists had always regarded these bumps as anomalies... as unnecessary blemishes... as one more example in the long list of mother nature's wild and untamed ways. Fortunately, Professor Fish took upon himself the task of transporting to his lab in Pennsylvania hundreds of pounds of dead, smelly whale that had washed ashore in New Jersey - in the back of his Mercury Lynx Hatchback. He dissected the bumpy fins, constructed models of them and tested them. Thanks to this, whale bumps are now inspiring and making possible new technologies because the bumps allow whales to manoever in ways that reduce drag and increase efficiency.

Scientists are not yet able to understand the physics that makes this possible. Nevertheless, whale physics is now giving us bumpy ceiling fans that are so efficient they use 20 percent less electricity and are so simple that they are cheaper to manufacture. Whale physics is now giving us wind turbines that are quieter and more efficient than standard turbines. Whale physics can be used in all sorts of machinery, including compressors, pumps, and anything with blades or rotors - just about anything that cuts through air, water, steam or oil.

You may know that whales sing and that all the whales in a community sing the same song. You may know that all the whales in the North Pacific (from Japan to Alaska to Hawaii) change their song simultaneously, despite thousands of miles between them. How they do this is a mystery. And this mystery - along with the mystery of whale physics - is what I marvel over when we're traveling through the part of our yearly orbit that we call February. I wonder how many bumpy or irregular things that we regarded as imperfections in ourselves are actually valuable? I wonder if all of those whales change their song simultaneously because they're all tuned to one big radio station - all tuned to a higher frequency - all participating in a shared mind? I wonder if they are conducting physics experiments with the sound waves they bounce off their environments? I wonder what else we humans will learn from the wisdom of whales.

This is Harriet Witt, your guide for this little ride on our passenger planet.


If you have any questions, drop Harriet an email: harriet@passengerplanet.com


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